The King's Hand

by Anna Thayer

  “But so many have been moving to your quarter, Lord Goodman!” Cathair interrupted. “Surely you cannot now say that you have not the space to house a handful of men? Such a response would seem unbecoming of you.” Eamon stared at him. It was not that simple, and Cathair knew it.

  “Lord Cathair –”

  “Some of the families in the quarter could be removed,” Dehelt suggested. “I am sure that any citizen of Dunthruik would gladly vacate their home for the city’s good and the Master’s glory. You may serve them with compulsory exit orders where necessary,” he added. “The city needs this service.”

  “Then remove them,” Tramist pronounced with a dismissive wave of his hand. “If the Serpent’s men glut themselves on their corpses, so be it.”

  There was a brief silence. Eamon’s mind whirled; he was sure that the whole affair had been engineered to his discomfort. The throned watched him.

  At last he nodded. “Let it be to your glory, Master,” he said. “The East will serve.”

  “So shall it be.” The throned smiled. “Lord Goodman, have you not a suit to play before us?” Those words chilled Eamon to his very core.

  “Yes,” he answered. “Glorious Master and noble lords, I would have you consider the law of confession.”

  “In what way would you have us consider it?” Cathair asked. Surprise was written on the Hand’s face. He had not been told of Eamon’s request. Eamon allowed himself some small satisfaction in knowing that it was not only him who knew not everything.

  “Rather, I would have you reconsider it,” Eamon answered. The throned leaned in his seat, his fiery hair rimming his smiling face, as though to observe an enjoyable spectacle. Eamon felt the tension in the air. He realized too late he had become the beast to be torn by the Master’s hounds.

  He drew a deep breath and spoke again. “My lords, from my experience of this law in practice yesterday, I feel it my duty to express my heartfelt opinion that it is flawed.”

  “You would not have men pay for their crimes?” Dehelt asked.

  “No,” Eamon corrected hastily, “it is right that a man who has committed a crime against a citizen of this city or this land, and has thus transgressed against the Master himself, receives punishment according to the law.”

  “Then what fault is there?” Cathair asked icily.

  “That in the absence of two witnesses confession is deemed a suitable means of assessing guilt.”

  There was a moment of silence. Suddenly, Tramist laughed.

  “Master, this Lord Goodman grows more and more deranged!” He rounded on Eamon with unprecedented fierceness. “How else is guilt to be established?”

  “A confession drawn under torture cannot be counted as a valid admission of guilt,” Eamon retorted.

  “Perhaps Lord Goodman would have every criminal breached and set free?” Arlaith commented. His tone was deathly quiet, and cut across the words of the other Hands like a scythe through grass. Fear laid hold of Eamon: how did Arlaith know about Patagon’s servant? “Perhaps Lord Goodman would have every criminal set free.”

  “When a man is innocent, what reason is there to punish him?”

  “But, Lord Goodman, every man you pardon and release back into the city has a purpose to which his guilt or innocence is indifferent,” Arlaith replied. He stepped forward. The Right Hand’s eyes flashed with fire. “Every man that you set free goes out to sing your praises. They do not go to glorify the Master; they glorify you.”

  Silence rent the air.

  Eamon gaped at Arlaith in horror. He could not bring words to his lips with which to reply to so serious a charge.

  The Right Hand laughed. “See, Master? He does not refute it. Such is the nature of his confession, though with that he need not have bothered. There are witnesses enough here to see that he betrays you.”

  “I do not deem this charge worthy of a rebuttal, but I will give it!” Eamon cried, his tongue freed at last. He felt his peril keenly but knew that in this deadly game, the only piece that mattered was the Master’s. The throned watched him with a smile.

  “All my service, Master,” he cried, “every stone and post reset, every man aided and saved, every paper signed, every word spoken, do they not bring you glory? Is not all my thought and deed for you?”

  “How dare you speak thus before the Lord of Dunthruik?” the Right Hand snarled. “He sees you for what you are, Goodman!”

  “And what am I?” Eamon demanded. Suddenly he was filled with boldness that feared neither the Right Hand nor the fearful hall in which he stood. “Am I not as faithful to him as you? The one who dares too much before the Lord of Dunthruik is not I. Had I your place, Lord Arlaith, I would think more carefully before assailing one, chosen by the Master for his service, with such words.”

  “You dare to speak of service and faithfulness?” The Right Hand surged towards Eamon; even the other Hands shied from his fury. “The Master’s glory is never in your mind!”

  “Never in my mind? No day goes by when I do not think of it!” Eamon answered. “But I will tell you what never is, and has never once been, in my mind, Lord Arlaith. I am to the Master less than a single feather to an eagle. Tell me, then, how I could ever hope – or dare – to rise against him who has graced me with service and made me a symbol of his glory? What I am this day, I am because I have served him and used every deed of my hands to work for his glory. How could I ever eke out any portion of greatness, or make his glory my own, when without him all that I do is nothing? His glory is both life and breath to me, and I have never striven against it, for when I do, I die.

  “Master,” Eamon said, turning fearlessly to the throned. “The people of this city live in fear. They fear that at any moment the Serpent will erupt through the gates; that he will drive through your streets and steal their children and homes; that his followers will destroy this city and cast you down from the very throne upon which you sit.

  “Why should they be so fearful? Lord Arlaith cannot answer that, because the Right Hand knows nothing of the hearts of these people; he is sapient only of the arts of fear, not the quelling of it, and it is the quelling of fear that brings glory to you.”

  “You will learn to hold your tongue, Goodman!” Arlaith cried, but Eamon ignored him.

  “The fear of the people does not glorify you, Master; it shows their belief that your power is insufficient to save them from the Serpent. That fear, so easy to eradicate, is graven indelibly into the people’s hearts by laws, such as this law of confession. It is a law that grinds the innocent into the ground at the whim of those more powerful than they. This law binds the people to you in fear, increasing their fear that you may yourself be bound by one greater than you. Their fear brings your name down into the dust where they walk and weep day by day. They weep because an unjust law shows weakness; it tarnishes the glory that your name should rightly hold. A law made for fear is no law at all.

  “Show these men and women a law that fills them with fear, and they can no longer glorify you. But show them a law that shows your confidence, Master, and their confidence in you grows. When they fear you,” he cried at last, “let it be because they are overawed by your greatness; let them glorify you for that.”

  Eamon’s blood pulsed through his veins and he fell back in silence. His words hung in the air and his limbs trembled.

  Everything now rested with the throned.

  The Master leaned forward. “What change would you have made to this law, Eben’s son?” They were words that neither promised nor threatened, but the Master bore in his eyes a glance of terrifying, and intimate, indulgence.

  “Master,” Eamon breathed, “I would have men give their accounts without fear of proclaiming themselves innocent.”

  Edelred smiled at him. “You would restrict the law of confession, and by extension the application of torture.”

  He bowed his head. “Yes, Master,” he said, “and I would see men proclaim your glory in our courts, knowing that your law upholds the
innocent and rightly condemns the guilty.”

  “It shall be so, Eben’s son.”

  The words shattered the silence. Eamon stared, jaw agape. The other Hands shared in his amazement. The Right Hand’s face fell in irate horror.

  “Master –”

  “You would gainsay my glory, Lord Arlaith?” the throned asked, and Eamon caught a glimpse of a terrible power in the cold gaze that turned to the Right Hand. Arlaith visibly paled, but could not answer. “That disappoints me.”

  The words were crushing. The Right Hand gasped for breath. The throned turned to the others. “Go, and do the work of my Hands,” he said. “Bring me glory as Lord Goodman brings me glory.”

  The Hands, Eamon dizzy among them, bowed in unison. “Your glory, Master,” they said.

  As they departed, the Master spoke one more time:

  “You will remain, Lord Arlaith.” It was a terrifying pronouncement.

  “Yes, Master.”

  Eamon left the hall with the other Quarter Hands. As he stepped into the corridor, his blood thinned in his veins, as though it could not reach every part of him swiftly enough. He felt lightheaded, jubilant.

  It might seem only a small change to the law, but the Master had heard him.

  Cathair and Tramist disappeared swiftly, their heads lowered together. Eamon walked after them, still in a daze. As he turned a corner in the empty corridor, he heard a voice by him.

  “Beware Lord Arlaith’s ire, Lord Goodman,” it said. “In peril it is second only to the Master’s favour.”

  Eamon turned to see Lord Dehelt. The North Quarter Hand inclined his head slightly towards him, and then, without a further word, followed in the wake of the others.

  Eamon was still dazed with his success as he clattered back into the Ashen. He must have had a ridiculous smile on his face, for people stared at him as though he were a madman. Perhaps he was; he had stood before the throned and the throned had listened to him. Hughan would be proud.

  Marilio was in the stables as he rode his horse in through the gates. The big man laughed to see him.

  “You look as though you have had a productive morning, my lord!”

  Eamon threw the reins to him and dismounted with a grace and agility that he had learned from Anderas, enhanced by his exultant mood.

  “I have, Mr Bellis!”

  On his way into the Handquarters he met Greenwood. The draybant was deeply involved in some papers that he carried, but looked up as Eamon passed. “Mr Greenwood!” Eamon called.

  “My lord?” Greenwood bowed.

  “I would like you to send to Stone Way to seek out a certain Mr Grennil and bring him to me as soon as you can,” he said. He had had one triumph that morning; he would seek to work another from the ruin that the other Hands planned for him.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “And please ask Captain Anderas to come and see me this evening, when he has dispensed with his duties.”

  “Yes, Lord Goodman.”

  Greenwood bowed and hurried away, and Eamon returned to his office.

  About midday there was a knock at his door. Eamon looked up from his papers – reams of exit papers to make room in the quarter for the Gauntlet that would be sent to him – and called to grant admittance. Slater entered and bowed.

  “My lord, I have a Mr Grennil for you?” Slater sounded unconvinced, but Eamon’s smile reassured him.

  “Yes,” he replied. “Please show him in.”

  Slater escorted Mr Grennil into the room, then left, closing the door behind him. Grennil bowed deeply.

  “You wanted to see me, my lord?” Eamon thought that there was an odd tone to the man’s voice.

  “Yes,” Eamon replied. Slowly he rose from his seat and came across to the man. “All is well, Mr Grennil,” he said, and held out a piece of paper to him. The man took it and looked at it.

  “An exit order?” he said, and looked up. Their eyes met. Grennil searched his face.

  “My lord, I don’t understand –”

  “Mr Grennil, has Damien told you how we met?”

  Tension drew Grennil’s jaws together. The man’s knuckles grew tight on the exit papers.

  Eamon carefully kept his manner neutral. “It was a curious thing, Mr Grennil. He came to help me with a small injury to my hand. I may have mis-seen – it was a very hot, bright day – but when he looked at my hurt, it was as if there was a strange blue light in his hand.”

  Grennil’s knuckles had gone white.

  “What would you say to that, Mr Grennil?”

  Grennil was silent. Shaking touched his knees. Eamon waited. If he was to trust this man, he needed to know that he was a King’s man, like his son. He could not justify the risk he meant to take without that knowledge.

  “My son is only a child, my lord. Please, let him go free.”

  “He will go free, and he will not be harmed,” Eamon promised. “He has learned well from his father.”

  Grennil’s trembling became outright quaking. “You know what we are, my lord,” he said. “ I… I will not deny it.”

  “You are a brave man.” Eamon drew a deep breath. Now, he also had to have courage. He lowered his voice to an audible whisper. “You have one lord, Mr Grennil, and you know as well as I it is not the throned,” Eamon continued quietly. “Just as this same lord sent me, now I must send you.”

  Grennil gaped. “S-s-sent you?”

  “I serve the same lord as you, Mr Grennil.”

  Grennil staggered – he grabbed a nearby chair for support. “Who are you?” he whispered.

  “Exactly what you see,” Eamon answered with a smile. “I am the Lord of the East Quarter, appointed by the Master. But I am not that alone. Like an actor on the stage, my parts are many.”

  Mr Grennil looked bewildered. “I do not understand, my lord.”

  “I am the First Knight, Mr Grennil.”

  Mr Grennil’s eyes widened in utter awe. “The First Knight?”

  Now shaking a little himself, Eamon nodded.

  A deep silence fell between them. Grennil stared at him in astonishment. Tears glistened suddenly in his eyes.

  “When my son told me what had happened, Lord Goodman, I thought you had simply spared him for his youth. I never thought that you might be –”

  “My name is Eamon,” Eamon told him. “I am no greater a man than you.”

  Grennil watched him for a moment, and then looked down at the paper again. “What would you have me do?” he asked earnestly.

  “I have been charged with making space in the quarter to house further Gauntlet reinforcements,” Eamon explained. “There simply isn’t enough room. I am having to empty a large number of residential areas, yours among them. To this end, I need you to recommend the names of families to me that it would be… shall we say convenient to evict. I will serve them their eviction notices.”

  Grennil’s eyes were touched with wariness. There was a silence as he considered.

  “I am entirely in earnest, Mr Grennil,” Eamon continued. “Dunthruik will soon be under siege, and is already no place for those that serve the King. Assist me in this, and we can give those who love the King the chance to flee to safety under the auspices of the law. I would have you lead these families to the King. He will protect them.”

  Grennil breathed deeply, then met Eamon’s gaze with resolve. “You told me before that you are not like Lord Ashway,” he said. “Now I understand why. I will do as you ask, First Knight.”

  “Then go, Mr Grennil. Bring back the names of as many as you can as soon as you can, and I will evict as many as I can.”

  Grennil nodded, and swayed against the chair. “I will.”

  “I know it is obvious, but I must stress that my true nature is not known,” Eamon added quietly. “Please take care that you speak of it to no one, and please do not let your own family fall into the clutches of the Hands. I ask this as much for your sake as for mine.”

  “I will do my utmost.”

  “I am
sure that you will.”

  Grennil looked at the papers in his hands again, then back to Eamon with a confused glance. “What about the head over the Blind Gate?” he whispered. “Did you really…?”

  Eamon smiled broadly. “If you encounter the King on your journey, Mr Grennil, give him my greetings and ask him to teach your son the real story. I am sure that young Neithan would tell it well.”

  Grennil nodded with delight.

  “I will.” There was another long pause, and he looked at Eamon with a deep respect. “You are a courageous man, Eamon Goodman,” he said. Eamon looked at him in surprise. “Perhaps you would say to me that we must each serve the King in different ways, and with that I would agree. Perhaps you would say that each man is fitted to the service that is asked of him.”

  “The King asks no man for more than he can do,” Eamon replied.

  “You have sacrificed much in your service, Eamon,” Grennil told him. “I can see it written on your face. And yet you serve still, and you serve in a way that I am not sure any other man could.”

  “This was the service chosen for me,” Eamon answered. “It is the King’s grace, and his faith in me, that has brought me here.”

  “And you hold to that. Thus I say that you are a courageous man,” Grennil replied. “It is one thing being shown what service you can perform; it is another to choose to perform it.”

  “Thank you,” Eamon breathed.

  “No,” Grennil answered; “thank you.”

  Eamon reached out and clasped Grennil’s hand. “May the King’s grace go with you.”

  “And with you, First Knight.”

  CHAPTER XXX

  Grennil was true to his word: a list of names, scribed in a variety of hands, discreetly arrived later in the day. Now being expert in handling the city’s papers, Eamon was swiftly able to draw up the exit orders required.

  Late that evening Eamon went across to the college to find Anderas. On the way he delivered the exit papers to Greenwood, asking for them to be dispatched as soon as possible. The draybant looked surprised, but nodded and took the stack away.